Investor attention is central to explaining the mean-variance puzzle. Using Google Search Volumes as a proxy to attention, I document a positive trade-off during low attention periods that is significantly undermined when attention is high. The negative association between on-line searches and...

We find a positive relationship between individual downside variance premia, the difference between risk-neutral and physical expected downside variances, and future corporate bond returns. The hedge portfolio earns the economically substantial and statistically significant excess return of...

This paper investigates the performance and characteristics of survivor stocks in the S&P 500 index. Using both in-sample and out-of-sample comparisons, survivor stocks outperformed this market index by a considerable margin. Relative to other S&P 500 index companies, survivor stocks tend to be...

We introduce a regime-conditional regression model to measure the risk profile of systematic investment strategies. We apply this model to classify systematic strategies into defensive and risk-seeking strategies with either positive or negative risk-premia alpha. Using the performance of the SG...

This paper exploits a natural experiment from the late 1800s in which many U.S. firms had inadvertently issued both taxable and tax-exempt bonds. Investors paid income tax on taxable bonds, but firms covered income tax on investors' behalf on tax-exempt bonds. Using a unique data-set of these...

Models of integrated asset markets predict that the debt and equity of the same firm have similar exposure to systematic risk. However, controlling for default probability, firms with a higher proportion of asset level systematic risk do not have commensurately higher spreads on either their...

Heterogeneous-agents asset pricing theories imply that stockholders' consumption has the first-order effect on equity premium. Motivated by these theories, we evaluate the performance of the conditional CCAPM in explaining time-variation in market returns and cross-sectional variation in...

This paper studies the concept of instantaneous arbitrage in continuous time and its relation to the instantaneous CAPM. Absence of instantaneous arbitrage is equivalent to the existence of a trading strategy which satisfies the CAPM beta pricing relation in place of the market. Thus the...

During the global financial crisis, stressed market conditions led to skyrocketing corporate bond spreads that could not be explained by conventional modeling approaches. This paper builds on this observation and sheds light on time-variations in the relationship between systematic risk factors...

It is well documented that the cash flow beta can partly explain the source of the value premium. This paper presents an empirical test that cast doubt on this widely accepted belief. We double sort the stocks with their value and quality dimension and obtain four corner portfolios: (A)...